


i'll love you in the morning

by wordstruck



Series: έρως και αγάπη [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Art Conservator Yuuri, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 11:17:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12275337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/wordstruck
Summary: Yuuri turns back to the painting, then leans his head in Chris’s direction. “What’s it called?”Chris has a bemused smile on his face, but he gestures to the label paper-taped to the canvas.“έρως και αγάπη,” he says. “Eros and Agape.”or, Katsuki Yuuri is an art conservator who takes on a project, an unknown painting of a man with silver hair and eyes like the shallow ocean.





	i'll love you in the morning

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on @butleronduty's [fanart piece](https://twitter.com/butleronduty/status/910881405264990208) for the YOI AU Zine, in which Yuuri is an art conservator who works on a painting of Victor. I hope it does the piece justice.
> 
> Special thanks to Diana ([thankyouforexisting](http://archiveofourown.org/users/thankyouforexisting)) for her help and support on this ❤
> 
> I do not know much about art conservation, but I did research to make Yuuri's process more believable/realistic. I make no apologies for the easter eggs I put in.
> 
> Come find me on Twitter as [@okw_tr](https://twitter.com/okw_tr) and Tumblr as [yurochkas](https://yurochkas.tumblr.com)! You can check there for ways to support my writing ❤

* * *

 

It begins in his dreams.

It’s an unfortunate habit, but one he doesn’t really feel like shaking. Every time Yuuri takes on a big project, he ends up sleeping in the studio most nights, huddled under the patchwork blanket that Phichit had gifted him four years ago. His boss, Chris, has long given up chiding Yuuri and trying to get him to go home more often. When Yuuri is fixated, it’s impossible to pry him away.

(It’s what makes him good at what he does, aside from the exceptional -- if raw -- talent.)

He’s in the final stages of restoring a painting of the God of Victory, and he’s dozing off on the couch in his studio. The air smells of paint and stale coffee. Phichit dropped off some extra clothes a few hours ago. Outside, the sounds of the city have quieted.

Yuuri shifts, curls up a little tighter, and dreams.

When he wakes, all he remembers are flashes of silver, and gentle hands wrapping around his wrists. He blinks the sleep from his eyes, and feels something indefinable settle between his lungs, and goes to make more coffee.

 

(There is a tremor under his skin. It goes away when his hands close over the mug. He pays it no mind.)

 

Little by little, like a dawning realization, his dreams take more definite shape.

He sees high cheekbones, sharp shoulders; eyes like the shallow ocean. There is a low voice in his ear, even if he never remembers what it says. In the mornings when he wakes up, he feels a faint warmth in his chest, his cheeks.

One night, the dream is vivid: a hand on his jaw, on his hip; a laugh, bright like sunshine. Someone is leaning into him, warm and intoxicating, and Yuuri doesn’t know who it is or what is happening but he does know that he _wants._

He wakes up with the feeling of something light brushing against his lips.

He continues to paint.

 

(He begins to look forward to dreaming.)

 

When this last painting has been restored, and has been sent off to Mila so it can be checked and recorded, and Yuuri’s had a few days to rest--

Yuuri enters the holding room, where they store paintings before they work on them, or before they’re sent off to museums and other owners. The God of Victory piece is here for safekeeping before it’ll be shipped. Chris is talking with Emil over a painting, a portrait. Yuuri looks over curiously, absentmindedly, and--

\--his breath catches in his lungs.

Flashes of silver; sharp shoulders. The line of a slender back. Yuuri can already picture the expression; the eyes. Like a shallow ocean.

His mouth opens before he can properly think.

“Chris,” he says, without even looking away from the portrait, faded as it is. His boss looks up, surprised.

“Yuuri?”

“I want this project.” The words come out breathless, clipped. Yuuri’s gaze is fixated. It feels like something is squeezing his chest.

“Uh--”

“Please.” He finally tears his eyes away, looks at Chris. Beside their boss, Emil looks from Chris to Yuuri to the painting, and shrugs, good-natured grin on his face.

“If he wants it,” Emil says, and relief blooms in Yuuri’s chest.

“Thank you,” he says, sincerely, and Emil just shrugs and chuckles. Yuuri turns back to the painting, then leans his head in Chris’s direction. “What’s it called?”

Chris has a bemused smile on his face, but he gestures to the label paper-taped to the canvas.

 _“έρως και αγάπη,”_ he says. “Eros and Agape.”

 

The painting sits in Yuuri’s studio.

He hasn’t moved yet, hasn’t brought out any materials. Before he works, Yuuri likes to sit and study the painting, find the story behind it (all paintings have them: a history written in brushstrokes and color). The painter is as yet unknown; Chris had said this restoration project was a commission by a collector friend of his named Stephane Lambiel. It’s not terribly intricate, no complex background, no multitude of layers. There’s not even a signature. Under the dirt and the damage, it’s simply a portrait of a man, covered in what is presumably a blanket.

Yuuri sits, and looks, and searches.

The painting itself elicits a slightly discomfiting feeling, almost as if the viewer were intruding on something private. As if it were from the perspective of a lover, someone who had woken up in the morning and turned to see this: their beloved sitting beside them, draped in the sheets, bathed in sunlight. Yuuri looks at where the paint has faded, discolored, and pictures the sunlight dappling those shoulders.

He wonders how much more breathtaking this sight would have been, in real life.

He starts slowly, carefully. Shifting to a more objective approach, Yuuri appraises the work. It’s very badly kept: dirty, patchy, faded and yellowed. Yuuri notes the art style; the short, broad strokes. He gently prises the framing apart to check the excess canvas for a better indication of the colors used -- deep blue-greys for the wall background, a sharp contrast to what Yuuri can tell is pale, freckled skin. If he looks closely, there’s a hint of what might be a beauty mark by the dip of the subject’s back.

 _Intimate_ \-- that’s the word he’s looking for. Intimate and familiar, as if the painter had known the subject dearly, the sweeping dips and lines of their body, the patchwork of their skin.

(As if Yuuri knows him, somehow; like an echo in his mind.)

His fingers skim the canvas, following the whorls of paint, the shape of the body. Briefly he wonders what the real thing would feel like under his touch. The thought comes unbidden, startling Yuuri, and he pulls his hands away.

These are not the things he needs to think about. Yuuri curls his fingers into fists for a short moment, like a reset, and lifts the painting off its stand. He has to work.

 

The restoration process is painstaking, meticulous, and slow. Yuuri separates the frame completely, takes the canvas off. He notes the title written on the back in small, scratchy, awkward Greek, then places a protective facing on the front so he can clean the back of the canvas with a scalpel and brush.

In the lab, Yuuri pores over the work under ultraviolet lights, looking at the varnish, the pigments. Steady hands brush solvent over the paint, gauging the true colors under the damage that time has dealt. Yuuri methodically parses square inch by square inch; brings Phichit in to photograph the details and stages; analyzes every stroke.

Slowly, surely, he finds the real painting underneath. And the beauty of it stuns him.

 

(The beauty of it creeps in between his ribs, wraps threads around his heart.)

 

Once the varnish has been removed, once the painting has been cleaned (and once Yuuri’s rested his eyes, headache brought on by all that squinting) -- Yuuri brings the canvas back to the studio. With cautious fingers, he re-stretches the canvas onto a new frame, sets up his easel.

Goes back to his stool, to sit, and look, and search.

Now that it’s cleaner, and now that he’s been able to study it in its entirety, Yuuri has a better visual of what this painting originally looked like. The expression is still smudged, but the rest of it -- the gentle curve of a wide back, the sharp angle of a shoulder; the way the subject is angled, as if he were looking at something just out of frame -- is clearer now.

Yuuri reaches out a hand, fingers hovering over the folds of the fabric. He wonders what this man’s name is.

It’s getting late. Yuuri decides to call it a night, go to sleep. He’ll start painting in the morning.

 

That night, Yuuri dreams of sitting in a studio, a different studio, with a brighter sun and air not made frigid by air-conditioning. There is a brush in his hand, there are paints scattered on a small table by his elbow. He looks up, and the painting he’s working on sits there, in the same state as in real life. But Yuuri thinks if he were to reach out, start painting, it would change, become what it was, and he could finally see--

Someone approaches him from behind. A pair of hands slides down his arms, skin lightly tanned and slightly calloused. Someone bends down and murmurs in his ear, low voice and soft breath, _that’s enough for today._

Yuuri startles awake, feels the ghost of a touch still on his wrists.

Feels the ghost of the dream in his mind, like a memory.

 

(He goes back to sleep. He doesn’t dream.)

 

While waiting for the first coat of varnish to dry, Yuuri goes to the reference library.

There must be _some_ record, somewhere. He searches for artists of similar style, no matter how obscure; searches for works of similar theme and composition. The lack of a signature of any sort makes things more complicated, but Yuuri is determined. If he’s to restore this painting properly, he needs to see if this artist has any more works (if any of them are of this man).

A few hours of searching turns up nothing, and Yuuri sighs in frustration. But the scope of art has an overwhelmingly large history; he’s sure it’s here. He just has to find it.

Phichit finds him surrounded by stacks of books, poring through anthologies of more obscure Renaissance artists.

“Are you looking for him?” his friend asks, leaning on the table and propping one elbow precariously on a stack of books on the Rococo period. Yuuri hums in response, more focused on the pages.

Phichit gently pries the book from Yuuri’s fingers, gives his friend a pointed look when Yuuri frowns up at him.

“Oh no you don’t,” Phichit chides, poking Yuuri on the forehead. “You need a break, and you’re coming with me. The painting isn’t going anywhere.”

 

Phichit manages to get Yuuri out for dinner and some coffee, but he can’t get Yuuri to sleep back at their apartment. Something about the painting compels Yuuri to return, like leaving it alone for too long would make it disappear. It’s not rational, he knows. And yet.

The soft, yellow light of his table lamp heightens the painting’s intimacy. Yuuri is back on his stool, staring at the painting. His fingers trace the lines of the body, not quite touching the surface, avoiding the large patches of missing paint.

He wonders what he’ll dream tonight.

 

(He doesn’t, and in the morning he feels the lack of it keenly -- feels disappointed. He looks at the painting and senses a name in the periphery of his memory, on the tip of his tongue.

He goes to get breakfast.)

 

Armed with tiny, precise brushes and several dozen pigment tubes, Yuuri begins to repaint.

He starts with the background, peering at the canvas through a jeweler’s visor. It takes him a while to mix the right shades of grey. Carefully, patiently, he fills in the missing color, matching the edges of the existing paint and working slowly inwards. It’s painfully slow, tedious work, but it’s his favorite part.

He takes breaks every few hours, blinking the fuzziness from his vision and stretching. He takes his lunch break at a nearby cafe. Chris drops by to check on his progress, comment on the colors and advising him on his repainting. Phichit also comes in to document the repainting process. Then Yuuri has dinner, and then he returns to the studio to sleep.

The dreams are infrequent and infuriatingly ambiguous, but Yuuri finds himself looking forward to sleep. There are brief touches, short blooms of warmth; there is a voice in his ear, although in the mornings Yuuri rarely remembers the words that were said.

Some afternoons he leaves off the repainting, goes back to the library, digs through book after book to try and find _something_ that will tell him more about the painting. He goes through references on the art style; anthologies, art movement textbooks. He even goes to Chris to ask. Chris tells him the owner, Mr. Lambiel, has no idea of the artist himself; he’d simply stumbled upon the painting in a gallery in St. Petersburg, and felt compelled to buy it.

Yuuri goes back to the library.

 

One day, while parsing through some books about unidentified paintings and lesser-known artists, he finds it.

Rather, he doesn’t find the painting he’s working on, but its accompaniments. There are two, and Yuuri instantly recognizes the subject as the same man in _έρως και αγάπη,_ even if he still hasn’t seen the project in its entirety. The silver hair; the freckled, sun-dappled skin; the art style are the same. Still looking at the page, Yuuri fumbles around for a nearby stool and takes a seat.

Both paintings echo the same intimate quality of his current project, the same feeling -- as if the viewer were peering into something private. In one, the subject is sprawled out in bed, blanket pushed down to his hips. The body is angled away, so the face is hidden. Yuuri traces the curve of the back, the hip, with one finger; the long lines of those legs, the folds of the sheets. There is a space on the open side of the bed, as if someone had just been there; had woken up, looked beside him, and seen something so beautiful he’d been compelled to paint it.

(He looks at the details: the sunlight from a window unseen; the play of shadows on the lover’s body. Everything so vivid and stunning, so lovingly rendered. He understands the desire.)

Lips lightly parted, Yuuri turns the page to see the other painting, and stills.

The loose, deep green tunic falling off one shoulder. One long, bare leg tucked up on the window sill; the other disappearing from view on the other side. The hands loosely holding a book, resting in his lap. But Yuuri’s eyes are drawn upward, to those _eyes_ and--

That expression. Caught as if in the middle of some action, as if about to say something. High cheekbones, high forehead. Lips lightly parted, almost in a smile. As if waiting to be kissed.

He’s as beautiful as Yuuri imagined.

 

He takes the book with him when he returns to the studio to work.

 

(Yuuri looks: at the photos of the paintings, the details he can make out. He looks and breathes into the spaces between his ribs and feels like he recognizes bits and pieces. He looks and he wonders what it would be like to touch.

He breathes, _three, five, seven, hold;_ goes back to work.)

 

From the background, Yuuri moves to the draping. As he recreates folds, he wonders: is it halfway through being slipped off, or pulled on? He follows where it dips over the lower back, knuckles skirting the beauty mark by the curve of a hip. He lingers, imagines the brush of fabric as it slides down the body, baring a canvas of skin. Imagines someone standing from the bed, sheet slipping off the edge to trail on the floor, hands pulling the cloth around a naked waist -- covering up what had been bathed in sunlight moments before.

There is a tremor under his skin, a slow-blooming longing. Yuuri paints and imagines and feels sparks in his lungs.

That night, he dreams.

 

He sits in a studio, the bright one, on a divan. There’s a sketchbook and a pencil in his hands. The page is still empty. The sun streams through the windows. He can hear the people outside, on the street below.

There’s a rustle nearby, and a sudden warmth. Someone kneels on the floor beside him, silver hair in his peripheral vision.

 _What is it this time?,_ and a laugh.

(Something quiet and comforting.)

 

Yuuri wakes up, and looks at the painting.

The name is there on the tip of his tongue, like the taste of something well-loved.

_Victor._

 

The days go by. The painting unfolds, reveals itself inch by inch. Yuuri feels his inhales sharpen as he moves onto the body. His gestures are careful, almost reverent; the skin blooms beneath his brush. As he paints he wonders what it would feel like.

The body in the bed; on the window sill; in the painting -- Yuuri imagines the fullness of it under his palms and breathes through parted lips. Sometimes he has fleeting thoughts of soft skin warmed by sun, dented by fingers, bathed in moonlight. The sparks under his skin spread, filter through his lungs.

He thinks of the artist, of the feelings they had tried to convey; the adoration and affection, intimacy and desire.

(Does not think about the echoes of those same feelings in his chest, like a heartbeat.)

 

Yuuri hasn’t yet worked on the face, choosing to finish touching up the body. If he’s honest, he’ll admit he’s avoiding it, almost. He’s not sure how to paint it, can’t quite picture the expression under the smudging of paint. But after he’s added the shading details, filled in the last gaps, Yuuri can’t keep putting it off. He sets down the brushes, lifts the visor to his forehead, and sighs.

Decides to take a break.

He gets dinner with Phichit, at the Chinese place round the block. His friend manages to convince him to get some dessert, too, so they bring a selection of small cakes back to the department, eat them in the break room. They talk about things other than Yuuri’s current project -- Phichit’s latest photoshoot assignment, Leo’s latest skating performance, memories of their college days. Then Phichit goes back to their apartment, and Yuuri goes back to the studio.

He looks at the painting in the middle of the room, then decides he’s done enough for tonight.

 

(He’s in the studio, half-naked, pants slung low on his hips. Outside, he can hear the sounds of the city waking up. He’s adjusting a blank canvas on its easel. Something stirs behind him; when he turns around, he sees the man -- sees _Victor_ sitting up in the bed, blanket pushed down to his waist. Slender fingers rub the sleep from his eyes. Slowly, Victor gets up from bed, pulling the blanket around his naked body for some cover from the morning chill.

Yuuri hears himself speak: “Victor.”

When the man pauses, Yuuri shifts the easel and says, “look here.”

There’s a small, knowing smile on Victor’s face as he turns, meets Yuuri’s eyes. He adjusts the blanket, the way it falls over his arms and around his back. His eyes flick away from Yuuri as he exhales, steadies his body.

Yuuri takes a moment to just look, awed by the beauty and simplicity of what he sees. Something warm and overwhelming blooms in his chest. Then his hand lifts the graphite to the canvas, and he begins to sketch.)

 

After breakfast that morning, Yuuri brings a bottle of solvent back with him to the studio. With cotton swabs and careful gestures, he cleans up the smudges of the expression, keeping what small areas can be salvaged. Then he takes his brushes, paints, and sits on his stool. Closes his eyes and recalls the scene in his dreams.

He paints.

Later that day, Yuuri steps back with a long sigh, rolling his shoulders. He sets the brushes down, tugs the visor off. His head hurts. He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his palms to his lids for a while, until the worst of the exhaustion is gone.

Then he opens his eyes, and looks at his work. Picks the brush and palette back up. Looks at the expression on the Victor’s face.

The overwhelming sensation returns to his chest, fills his lungs and creeps up his throat. His hands shake, ever so slightly. Yuuri looks and feels warmth spread through his body, a bloom of heat on his cheeks.

Almost subconsciously, almost in a daze, Yuuri leans forward. Without thinking, he closes his eyes, presses his lips to the painting in a kiss. It feels only like the faint scrape of dried paint, tastes only like chemicals. Holding his breath, Yuuri pulls back.

The man in the painting continues to gaze outward, unchanged. Yuuri isn’t even sure what he’d wanted to happen.

He stands there for a few more moments, hand hanging in mid-air, head fuzzy. Then he slowly puts down his brush, the palette. He can continue tomorrow.

When he turns away from the painting, it almost hurts. But Yuuri cannot say why he’s so drawn to it, why it feels almost like if he were just to reach out, he could pull back some curtain and find Victor standing there in person.

The painting is almost fully restored. Maybe after he’s finished, he’ll find out.

 

(If he’s honest: a small part of Yuuri doesn’t want to finish, doesn’t want to let Victor go. _It’s just a painting,_ he tells himself, but it’s also not, it’s not. Yuuri doesn’t _understand,_ doesn’t know why, but it’s just -- not.)

 

The next night, after he’s done, Yuuri exhales slowly and eases the visor off his head. He rubs the soreness from his temples, the bridge of his nose; blinks the tiredness from his eyes. Stands up.

He’s hungry, but it’s too late to go find something to eat. Yuuri makes do with tea gone cold, then goes to the bathroom to clean up a bit. The cool water on his face refreshes him a little. When he returns to the studio, he pauses in the middle to just look at the painting.

Something inside him aches.

Yuuri turns away, gets ready to sleep.

 

He dozes off on the couch, fitfully. There are flashes of silver again in his dreams, and eyes, and that low voice calling his name. Like a litany, like a prayer, soft and warm and intimate--

_“Yuuri.”_

\--and _real._

Yuuri sits up. The lights are all off but for the lamp at the far side of the couch. The moonlight filters through the high studio windows. He blinks, looks up, meets a pair of eyes like the shallow ocean. Silver hair; high forehead. A flush on those high cheekbones like something Yuuri has painted.

Yuuri stares, forgets to breathe. The corners of Victor’s eyes crinkle in a soft smile.

“Here you are.”

 

Victor in the flesh is breathtaking; startled as he is, Yuuri cannot look away. He blinks and looks and Victor is smiling, looking at him with immeasurable fondness. Like Victor knows him.

(Like Victor loves him.)

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, and the low voice is so familiar, the words are an ache in Yuuri’s chest, they feel like he’s heard them countless times before. “Yuuri.”

His name in Victor’s voice is headier than any wine he’s had to drink.

“Were you painting again?” Victor asks, and there’s a laugh in his voice.

“Come to bed,” Victor tells him, and soft hands reach for his wrists, and everything he says feels like he’s said them many times before, on many nights, to Yuuri. Victor leans forward, the sheet slipping from his shoulders and down his waist, and Yuuri--

 

\-- _wakes up._

The sunlight streams through the studio windows. His materials are scattered over the counter. The painting sits on the easel, fully restored and back in its frame. Victor looks out of the painting, at something just out of frame.

Yuuri looks at the painting, and breathes into empty spaces, and remembers.

Then he gets up, and goes to have breakfast.

 

Yuuri returns the book to the library. He gives it to Sara with a memo that there’s one more painting related to the two in the reference, and that Phichit has all the necessary documentation. He drops by the lab to return some tools, accepts Phichit’s invitation to lunch.

After the meal, he drops by Chris’s office.

“Ah, Yuuri,” his boss says, slightly surprised.

“I’ve finished,” Yuuri tells him.

Chris blinks, then exhales a smile.

“I’ll get it later.”

 

Yuuri goes back to the studio.

The painting sits on the easel.

He perches on the stool and looks at it.

It’s no longer clear which sections Yuuri filled in; the painting looks whole, cohesive. Yuuri’s eyes flick up to one shoulder, down the line of the back, up again over the drape of fabric over one arm. The sun-dappled skin. The small beauty mark. The shadows.

His fingers brush over the paint, just once.

 

Yuuri’s returning his supplies to their boxes and drawers when Chris comes to take the painting to check it over before it goes to Mila. His boss tells him that Lambiel will pick it up in a few weeks, the earliest he can come in from Martigny. Yuuri nods, and goes back to putting away his things.

Chris calls his name, quiet but firm.

“Good work,” Chris says, with a warm and sincere smile. Yuuri feels his lips curl into one in return.

“Thank you.”

 

Stephane Lambiel is a soft-spoken, pleasant man. He’s overjoyed to see the restored painting, only slightly disappointed that they don’t know who painted it. He promises to use the book that Yuuri found as a starting point to find the other pieces, if they’re out there.

“It’s a very appropriate title, though, isn’t it?” Stephane asks, lips pursed in amusement.

“Pardon?” Yuuri asks, looking up at their client.

 _“έρως και αγάπη,”_ Stephane says, gesturing towards the painting.

Yuuri looks at the piece, thinks of the fabric, sliding down skin. Thinks of a laugh pressed into his shoulder and palms on slim hips, sharp breaths against his neck. A low, warm voice. Eyes like a shallow ocean. The overwhelming feeling in his chest.

“Yes,” he answers with a small smile.

 

Yuuri returns to the studio to pick up his things. Everything is cleaned up, put away, ready for the next project to come. The easel in the middle is empty. The blanket is bunched in the corner of the couch. The moon is visible through the windows.

After packing his bag, Yuuri leaves for home.

 

After dinner with Phichit, who congratulates him on finishing such a difficult piece, Yuuri goes to his room. On the bed, he closes his eyes, imagines Victor there beside him, warm and bright. The sheets falling over the curve of his hip, those long legs. The rise and fall of his chest as he dozes in the afternoon sun.

For a moment, it almost feels real.

Yuuri thinks about the person in his dreams, the artist behind the paintings. Wonders how he had met Victor, feels it unsurprising that he’d been compelled to paint such a beautiful man, and to love him. Thinks about everything he’d seen, the way Victor had looked in those visions.

The city outside falls quiet as Yuuri falls asleep.

He doesn’t dream.


End file.
